BLOODLINES
by jennii.b
Summary: "Don't leave me," he whispered. "Stay here—stay with me…" Katy isn't the only one with something to hide. Walt's not very good with any of the women in his life...why must his daughters keep so much of their lives from him? He truly loves them and only wants what's best for them... (Major OC)
1. Chapter 1: Fire

_**If you're a fan of the show LONGMIRE, and you haven't yet had the pleasure of reading Craig Johnson's books, The Walt Longmire Mysteries, please…please…please…go read them!**_

_**Completely different, completely engaging, you see a COMPLETELY different Walt Longmire.**_

_**I hope you enjoy mine every bit as much as I've enjoyed both books and series!**_

"Walt?"

"Just good news, Rose. Just good news." He hissed in his breath and let it out slowly. "They're going to ease up on her medications. Let some reality back in."

Branch looked up at his boss and wondered what made the man tick. "You want to ride out there? We've got this…"

Walt nodded gratefully. "I do. I want to be there when she comes out of it. I don't know what she's going to be like, what she'll remember or how she'll feel."

"Want me to come with you?" Vic offered.

He smiled at the younger woman, pleased and amused and touched.

"I got this. This daughter I can understand."

He drove to the hospital in the sleeting rain, wondering what he'd find when his youngest was let out from under the trap of the sedatives. Wondered what she'd remember of the nightmare. Worried over the pain.

Branch clenched his jaw and texted Cady a message just in case her father hadn't thought to call her. Obviously things were still strained.

Forty miles away Autumn clenched her jaw against the burning in her shoulder, the pain in her limbs, and the fuzzy pounding in her head. Her arms didn't want to connect—too heavy—and her mouth felt full and swollen. Her cheek ached. Her hand stung. Her throat was seared.

And the cool air washed over her as she simultaneously reconciled the feel of sheet, the ozone tang of the air, and the medicinal antiseptic scent in her nostrils with the disjointed images her brain was feeding her. Images that mostly featured waves, coated in flame, coming at her.

"Where am I?" she asked.

Correction: she _tried_ to ask. She cleared her throat and tried again.

"Where am I?"

It was better this time. Stronger. Her head spun as she tried to push herself up. She was on her stomach, staring at a rolling cart with beeping lines and pips. Just a bit farther away was another cart, this one holding a pitcher of presumably water, along with some cheap plastic cups. And just beyond that was a body.

Again, presumably, because this one was wrapped up like a mummy.

A hand reached out and covered hers as she tried to find purchase to brace her trembling arms enough to rise to a sitting position.

"Easy, Autumn," the voice said. It was a good voice. One that she'd known for what felt like forever. And it was completely out of place.

"Samuels? Carson?" she tried to ask, trying to gesture so that he'd understand she asked about the other soul in her room.

"It's Macawi, Autumn," he said instead, crouching so that his face appeared before hers. His voice was gentle, his touch even more so as he reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

"I'm home?" she asked.

"You are. And you're safe now. Do you remember anything?"

She hesitated, considering. "I think I do. Why aren't I at Walter Reed?"

Macawi Mathias shrugged. "I have no idea. I didn't realize you were here until my witness ended up in the next bed for a while."

He discreetly pushed the call button for the nurse.

"Where's my team?"

He shook his head, swallowed hard. "Autumn, I don't know anything. I don't have any answers for you."

She paused, her breath spend, her throat so very sore, and considered. The back of her head and neck especially hurt like hell—throbbing and pulling and tight. Her shoulder felt ravaged.

"I know you had a couple of surgeries. A couple of grafts to try to piece everything back together. I don't know what happened beyond what's known in town."

"I can remember now," she whispered. She could. And she doubted that was either of her teammates in the next bed. She shifted slightly, wincing at the pain. The moaning started and she tried to control the urge to scream. It mustn't have worked, though. Because Macawi's hand clenched down on hers. Or perhaps he responded only to the clawing nails she raked into his palms as she fought both the nausea and the awareness and her body's physical distress.

"Don't leave me," he whispered, shifting so that he was in front of her again. "Stay here—stay with me…"

She couldn't. The haze took over her mind before the nurse was able to plunge the hypodermic in and take away the worst of it.


	2. Chapter 2: Flat Out

Walt got there just as Macawi took refuge in the men's latrine at the other end of the hall. He'd been violently ill the first time he'd been present for Autumn's dressing change. This was the first time he'd ever experienced anyone screaming like that, though. He wondered what the hell they'd been thinking, bringing her out. Wondered what would have to happen before they tried it again.

Walt listened patiently and with great concern as the nurse told him what had happened. He shook his head and slapped his hat against his leg, his face grim. Then he did what he always did when he came to visit her. He pulled out a paperback, pulled up a chair, and read aloud from the romantic comedy Cady had picked out for her sister. Nothing in it to remind her in any way of the accident. Nothing in it to add any pain to her subconscious.

Macawi re-entered her room and came to a complete halt.

"Sheriff," he nodded.

"Officer Mathias," Walt nodded. His frown wrinkled his forehead. "You're a long way off the res. What can I do for you?"

The younger man shook his head, then moved toward the young woman in the room.

"I wish she had a private room," he murmured as his fingertips traced the corner of her brow. He took up a position on the opposite side of the bed, checking lines and blankets and wrappings. "Did they tell you what happened?"

Walt nodded. "Was it you here with her?"

The young Indian nodded. "They don't tell me anything. I just come sit with her. Talk to her."

He tried to judge the older lawman's face. It was as impenetrable as always.

"What set her off?"

"They tried weaning her off the pain meds. I think they planned to give her a morphine pump. They never got to, though. She was disoriented—kept asking about her team. She asked a couple questions, figured out she was home, asked a couple more. I could see her fighting it, see her fighting to hang in there. I laid into the nurse's button, Walt, I swear to God I did. They didn't get in here until after she'd started full-out screaming. I've never seen anything like it. Every muscle in her body was rigid. Her neck and back and arms. I couldn't let go of her; she had my hand so tight—I couldn't back out of the way when the staff got in here."

Walt, like any father worth anything, felt his own stomach clench up. He fought back tears and nausea at the idea of his child in pain.

"I appreciate that you were here with her," he admitted. "I came as soon as her doctor called. As soon as they said they wanted to bring her out from under the constant sedation. I was on my way…"

Macawi nodded, accepting the man's words. He didn't need them. He reached out his hand—freshly washed and dried so that only the half-moon scars of her nails remained. Walt leaned forward to shake it, his keen eye taking in every detail.

"Left her mark on you," he said.

Macawi nodded ruefully, dropping the damaged hand to pull it through her hair once more. "I wish I could wash her hair. Trim it up for her."

Walt tilted his head, taking in the shaggy length. The fire that had burned through his daughter's wetsuit had left her long hair in ravaged condition.

"Cady said that she was trying to grow it out."

Macawi shrugged. Someone had looped the mass of it up and out of the way on a couple of occasions. He figured that it was her sister who came in, removed the binding, and brushed it out. Still…

"She'll have to have it cut. She won't like to have been left like this. And she's worn it short before."

It wouldn't have to be severely short. If it was evened up the longest length would probably just cover her long, slender neck. That neck still sported a large bandage where the wound-care team had applied some salve. The skin grafts had started lower, closer to her shoulder blade, extending down toward her ribs. The flesh was like a patchwork quilt. Pink, raw skin that they though could be saved, new skin grafts, the places where they'd used wound vacs on her at the hospital in Astoria.

"What happened?" Macawi asked. He looked up. "She asked me. I don't know. I know there was an accident; I don't know anything else."

Walt shrugged. "That's pretty much all anyone knows. She went out on a call. Whether they got to where they were going & pulled somebody in or not I don't know. I know that there was time for a distress call. I know that she was able to pull herself onto an inflatable. That there was fire. Fuel from the transport burning on the surface of the ocean. Part of the problem was getting the melted material off her shoulder. I don't know whether it came from her wetsuit or the life raft or what. They found her, pulled her out, and got her to the hospital. You know Cady and I went out there? When she was able—when it looked like it was going to be a long road, we had her moved out here."

"They're first rate. Not as famous as some, maybe, but they've got the experience here to deal with it. They see a lot of—"

"I know. With the fires and all. Its where they send a lot of the local firemen who get burned badly. What the hell are you doing here, Mathias?"

The Indian shrugged. "I can't see to leave. Can't seem to stay away. I had a witness here for a day or so just after she came home."

"The abuse case?"

"Yeah."

"Witness all right now?"

"She's where she'll never be hurt again. The husband where he'll burn forever."

"Tough."

"Not nearly tough enough. I wish I could have hurt him before I sent him to hell. The girl was thirteen. He doused her with kerosene and set the trailer on fire. She watched him kill her mother, then she was left to die the most horrific way I can think of." His eyes met the sheriff's. "No tough. Nowhere near tough enough."

Walt nodded. "And then my daughter came in at the tail end of it."

Macawi nodded. His hand trembled as he let it glide over the young woman's face again. "She did. And I've spent many hours with her, telling her how brave and strong she is. How much faith I have in her. You'll not keep me away this time, Sheriff."

Walt considered the declaration. "Seems to me she made up her own mind last time."

"Because of you. Because you made it difficult. Do you know how it tore at her? Having to sneak around behind you? Having to hide what we had?"

"Couldn't have meant as much as you think. She left you. A long time ago. And went a long ways away to get as far from you as she could."

"She left you, too, Sheriff. You broke her heart, too."

In light of recent trouble with Cady and Branch Walt considered the circumstances surrounding his daughters' love lives.

"I wasn't wrong to encourage her to finish school first, to get her degree. It was important to me. Important to my wife. We were in agreement on that."

"And I was a wild child from the reservation. That's all you saw."

"That's what the facts were, Macawi. When you got a scholarship to the university we weren't the only ones surprised. When you chose to pursue law enforcement it seemed like the county joke. Nobody took you seriously."

"She did. Autumn always did."

Walt waited. "She didn't date in college. Never brought a boyfriend home…"

"Because you'd already encouraged her to leave him flat. You'd taken the ring he worked hard and saved for and you tossed it away. Did you want to hear that she spent her nights with me? That if it wasn't for her I'd never have learned how to survive in that world of books and buildings and blacktop? You watched her swim. You watched her win. You cheered her successes like they were yours. But she wasn't, not really. She hasn't been in a long time."


	3. Chapter 3: Cold

Amber was waiting for him. He saw her as he rounded the corner, as he pulled up the short drive from the dusty road to his equally dusty house.

She didn't fit in there. She had her mother's pale, pale skin. The dark hair wasn't the shiny blue-black of the people. It was some shade closer to chestnut—hints of red playing in the dark brown. Some gold teased out by the angle of the sun.

Golden. She was golden to his dirt-colored existence.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her brusquely as he stepped down from his truck. He'd taken to driving the patrol vehicle even off-duty. It was a status symbol. The Cheyenne had their own law now. They'd have the same privileges and perks as the city and county and state cops.

Instead of waiting for an answer he kept up the same stride, passing her without a glance, without a touch. He let the screen door slam behind him as he entered his small house.

Amber wasn't surprised when just moments later she heard the pounding of his boots headed back toward the front. She had bided her time, unsure of the situation on the res, uncertain of the situation with this man. And when she heard the door open again she let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

The cold can already had condensation forming on it when he held it out over her shoulder. She accepted—even though she preferred to drink beer from a bottle or tap. The can didn't do it justice.

He liked his in the cold, gold can, though. Always had. She smiled a little over that thought as she popped the tab.

He popped his own behind her. She didn't hear him swallow—he was always so quiet in everything he did—but she knew from many years acquaintance how he would look just now. Hot. Tired. Frustrated. Maybe a bit uncertain, perhaps even edging toward scared.

She knew what expression his face would hold as he tilted the can back and sought the crisp, clean taste of it. She'd watched his throat swallow down nearly a whole can many a time. His first he usually gulped down in one or two draughts. He was a man who could hold his liquor, though. He had complete control. Otherwise he'd never unbend enough to drink.

"Are you taking pain meds?" he asked suddenly.

She nodded. "I had one earlier. Darvocet. Nothing major."

Nothing major meant she wasn't overdosing—taking two of the stronger prescription pills as well as an over-the-counter antihistamine or Dramamine at the same time. Sometimes the pain was that bad. Sometimes it wasn't. When she'd gotten loosened up this morning she'd thought that maybe today would be the day that she could start trading a dose or two at a time for something that didn't require a doctor's signature. She had tried several times now to skip pills; she'd tried delaying the use of the narcotic with Motrin or Ibuprofen. She always ended up back on the prescription-strength pills, though.

Macawi crushed his can and set it on the porch railing. He dropped to sit beside her, taking her hand in his.

"Probably shouldn't drive if you finish that. 'Specially if you have another with me later."

"I know."

"You're here about the boy."

She nodded. "I didn't know how everything would play out. If there would be acts of dissent."

"It's always bad when your father has to arrest one of the people," he told her.

He paused, considering the work left to be done today. "It's always bad when I have to arrest one of yours. It's just the way it is—nothing will ever change that."

"You see us as two different kinds of people."

"I do."

She turned, letting his arm come around her, and leaned against his shoulder. Her face tucked beneath his collar, inhaling his good, strong scent.

Macawi took the drink from her hand and set it on the steps beside him. His arm circled hers, gently tugging her closer.

"I am glad you're beside me tonight," he murmured. "I would not have wanted to face this without knowing you supported me."

"What will you do?"

He shook his head. "Your father, for all that I hate him, is a good and true lawman. If I have to trust a white officer, I'd choose him every time. My heart says this is not true—that the girl's brother did not do this. And on the other hand-"

"I would kill any man who held my sister down and hurt her," Amber protested.

"I certainly understand that. Would you not let the wheels have their chance first?"

She shook her head. "Not if I had a choice. Why would I?"  
He considered this as he stroked her soft shirt. It had been his—back in school when they'd been close before. She'd borrowed it after becoming chilled one afternoon at a shallow bend in the river where they'd swum. When she'd shivered while they were dressing he'd wrapped it around her, buttoning it over the skimpy tee shirt she'd worn for his torment. She had others now. His college wrestling team shirt. A flannel. Even a darkly tanned leather jacket that he knew she wore frequently.

He'd wondered—when he'd ventured into Walt Longmire's office—if the man knew that the coat she wore in many of those pictures on his desk belonged to the man he thought he'd run off ten years earlier.

"I'm going to have to arrest you someday for that vigilante justice of yours."

She shrugged. "I promise to try not to get caught."

He laughed and tipped them back so that they lay on his small porch. His mouth sought and found hers where she lay half on, half beside him. It was one of the positions that he felt completely comfortable taking advantage of her. He could monitor the wounds still healing on her back and yet have the full-body contact his soul craved.

His hand cupped her cheek, his tongue delving deeply into her mouth. He loved the taste of his beer on her. It was earthier and sweeter on her. Changed the taste of her lips to something muskier. Darker. More.

"Gunbelt," she murmured as she shifted first away and then closer. She tugged at the equipment belt that had some taser or radio or other uncomfortable apparatus driving into her waist and hip.

Macawi laughed and helped her loosen the buckle as he sat up.

"Perhaps a bit more decorum?" he asked, glancing around. His home sat on a small piece of property. His neighbors were close—which never bothered him unless he wanted some privacy with his woman.


	4. Chapter 4: Truths

The next day came too early for the young man. He shifted carefully, smoothing back the swing of dark hair that fell to cover her face as he eased away from her.

It caused something akin to physical pain to disentangle himself from her.

Some of this morning's regret came from knowing what faced him.

His work was challenging, rewarding to a great degree, and usually well within his ability. He'd never sought the job title he bore now and had been pleased to simply be an officer. Acting as chief put the weight of responsibility on his shoulders and that weight sometimes chaffed. Butting heads with the local sheriff- - who bore that responsibility with seeming ease and assurance- - was salt in the wounds.

Mathias washed and dressed and took one last glance at the sleeping form in his bed before taking firm, steady footsteps down the hall toward what the day would bring him.

At the other end of the house another man's boots stomped an unending tattoo on his porch. As he neared the screen door and recognized the silhouetted figure Mathias sighed. It was inevitable.

"Help you, Sherriff?" he asked as he pushed the door open and let it slap closed behind him.

He pulled the same stunt on the father that he had on the daughter the night before; he spat out his short words, then kept on walking.

"Yeah, you can." Walt Longmire paused, considered his options. The younger man was- - at heart- - a good and decent cop. He'd been rough around the edges as a kid and had hung with a crowd of troublemakers from the res. His bloodline was impeccably pure and as a teenager he'd been vocally proud of that fact. Walt's hat slapped his thigh as he took in his daughter's dusty jeep pulled up beside the house. Mathias threw something in the back of his truck, then opened his driver's side door.

"You want to do this here or at the station?" he finally asked.

"Whose station?"

"Either."

It was a small concession. He had to talk to the young man, had to clear as many facts about his investigation as possible. And like it or not, this man knew his people. He'd be the likely source of the insight the lawman needed.

"Do you have the crime scene images with you?" At Longmire's nod the young man shook his head. "Amber has not gotten them from me. I'd rather she not wake up to those pictures." There was a pregnant pause. Walt waited it out.

"I'd like to see Michael Raven Stone," Mathias said at last. "Unless there is something in my records that you think will aid us in clearing the boy's name."

"I'll meet you in town, then," Walt conceded, stepping down to swing into his own truck. "If you think of something we can have it faxed over or come back for it later."

The northern branch of Absaroka County's Sherriff's Department had once been the library. Macawi hated that he loved that history. His time in libraries was limited to time spent with Amber. Good, happy, innocent times when she had the power over him to make him do anything, go anywhere. He'd discovered his love of books waiting for her to finish browsing the dark, dim, quiet spaces here in town. In college she'd helped him through research papers and difficult assignments seated at the big, sturdy tables. Both facilities had housed artwork as well… sculpture and paintings and intricate rugs. If now he preferred to download his reading material onto one of the devices in his arsenal he could freely admit that his love of libraries hadn't dimmed over the past decade.

Longmire's bootsteps interrupted his introspection. The white officer had wisely kept his speed down on the reservation, knowing full well that every time he stepped foot over that line there were those who hoped to catch him breaking their laws.

"May I speak with Michael first?" Macawi asked.

Longmire nodded, then gestured. "You know the way…"

Surprise showed on the faces of those who looked up at their entry. Michael Raven Stone lay disconsolate on the bunk to the right of the door. Ruby's sweet, grandmotherly form kept sentry at her desk just opposite.

"Ma'am," Mathias said respectfully, ducking his head. The deputies in the room he largely ignored as he stepped to the cage in which one of his people was trapped. He greeted the young man in the native tongue.

"_Michael. How are you?"_

"Vic, open it up, please," Longmire requested as he shrugged out of his coat.

Surprise wasn't quite the word for the glances he received from his team. Luckily no one questioned the order.

"_Is my mother all right?"_

"_Yes," _Mathias answered almost automatically. He amended his words. _"She frets over her children now."_

"_I didn't do it, I promise," _Michael Raven Stone swore as he stood and met the man at the bars while the door was unlocked. His face was pale and drawn but his eyes met Macawi's steadily. The past thirty hours had robbed those eyes of any boyhood left; it was a man's face that he looked into.

"_I know. We will find who did."_

"_I'm not sorry he's dead. But I didn't kill him," _Michael continued as he stepped through the door Vic held open for him. "_I don't think Katherine did, either. We were raised better."_


	5. Chapter 5: Official Statement

"_We were raised better."_

Mathias considered that statement. Their father had once been a much sought-after guide for hunters, a skilled tracker, and an excellent marksman. What the land and his own father had taught him the US government had finely honed in Big Mike Raven Stone. The boy's acessement had less to do with the morality of taking a life and reflected on the fact that if he or his sister wanted to kill a man they knew how to do so in a far more economical and untraceable fashion. There'd have been no evidence.

A glance over at Longmire showed he was plainly watching them as he held open the door to his office. His guest correctly interpreted his expression and gestured the young man in that direction.

"Forgive us, we've been rude. English is not Michael's first language as his mother is fundamentally back-to-basics. I doubt they've spoken it since his father died as she is an intelligent woman and homeschools her children."

"Care to share?"

"I inquired as to Michael's well-being and he asked about his mother and sister."

"He tell you we've made sure he's been kept safe and well?"

An evil sparkle struck Mathias's eye. "He said no such thing. In fact he did not answer my question, instead turning the conversation to those he loves."

Longmire looked down at the boy. His features were beautifully native. His thick, straight black hair was cut in a conservative, preppy shape much like his own deputies'. When he'd been picked up he'd been wearing jeans and a heavy fleece vest over a plain button-down. The only thing back-to-basics about him were his beautifully tanned and beaded moccasins. And yet when the boy spoke to him he'd heard the truth in what Mathias was saying.

Now the boy simply regarded him as he had so many times over the last day and a half.

"You want to call your Mom, kid?" the older lawman asked. He sank into his chair and flipped the phone around.

The Raven Stone scion glanced questioningly at Mathias before echoing the other man's nod. His fingers trembled as he dialed his mother's number. The deep voice cracked and broke when he said her name.

Longmire slid a pad and paper over to Mathias as they greeted each other. The other law man took his notes—took them dutifully and carefully—and after a few minutes when Longmire quietly urged the boy to close the conversation, Mathias tore not only the top page he'd written on off the pad, but also the next few pages as well. Longmire conceded a point in his favor. When he folded and tucked them all in his chest pocket he had to hide a smile. As bad as he hated the upstart he'd become a force to be reckoned with.

"How's your sister?" he asked.

"She's stable. No change. The skull fracture and brain trauma…they have her in a coma - - one with their medicine- - so that they can control the swelling and all. They shave her head. She still holds the baby. My mother fears for her. She's so young. And she worry about what the medicine do to the baby. No one tell her anything."

Mathias knew that the woman Big Mike had married was an only child. Their children had grown up with his pragmatism and her mysticism without aunts or uncles or grandparents to act as buffer. He imagined the woman suffered indeed as she wondered at the hospital's ways. He would send a deputy over there to sit with her a while. Call his own mother and ask her to spend some time at the woman's side.

"Okay, son, now let's take it from the top again. You went over to your sister's house two nights ago-"

According to the statement the kid had made when they'd arrived, Michael had dropped by that afternoon for a routine visit. His mother frowned on his leaving the res to check on his sister and her white husband, so he slipped in the meetings on his way back and forth from work. No one from either side of that divide approved of the man she'd married. He was a shifty jack-of-all-trades who picked up what work he could as a ranch hand or manual labor or whatever. Nobody really seemed to know where he'd met, let alone wooed the little Cheyenne girl. She'd been easy on the eyes with a sweet, trim figure that promised to ripen even further. Smart, funny, easy-going and kind according to everyone he'd talked to… and yet, nobody knew when or how they'd hooked up. No overlapping circles, no mutual friends.

Mathias read over the reports in the folder Walt slid his way as he listened to the boy's side of the story one more time.

It had been nearly suppertime when he got to his sister's little row house in the scrubland. Worthless land, dirty and dusty and dry. She kept a neat house, that much Mathias knew from his own interviews. She was proud of the home she was building, excited about having Carson's baby.

Michael spoke of hoping her husband would still be on a jobsite somewhere and of getting out of his car only to hear her begging, the man screaming. And then the sound of him hitting her and the sobbing. His wording was different with this telling than when he'd been in the county hospital explaining what happened to Macawi, different slightly from the way he'd written his statement for this office. But his chronology, his details- - his facts were still dead-on.

Again the boy went through the sequence of running in to see his brother-in-law partially lift his sister by the front of her shirt and slap her hard before tossing her, again _hard_ the boy emphasized, against the cabinets under the sink. He claimed to have heard the sound of a bone or something breaking even though the older man was still swearing and cussing. He'd turned on the boy and the younger man did what came natural… he defended himself and his sister. He'd picked up the only thing to come to his hand as he'd rushed toward the raging Carson. That had turned out to be a piece of the crib she'd had spread out to assemble for the child she'd so looked forward to having.

Mathias's heart went out to the kid as he described swinging his makeshift baton at Carson's head. The way it felt and sounded when it connected. And the way Carson hadn't even noticed the blow. He'd put his shoulder in the other man's gut and tried to bring him down that way, Carson punching and hitting all the while. The reservation police had noted in their file corresponding bruises on the youth's torso to corroborate the story. The county had not seen fit to include those records.

Apparently the fight had shifted toward the living area- - away from the kitchen and where the body of Katherine Carson nee Raven Stone had fallen. Back toward the front door and the big picture window at the South-facing side of the mobile home. Michael Raven Stone ended up on his back on top of what had been his sister's coffee table. The monster had his hand around his throat now. Claw marks on the victim's wrist corroborated this part of the story. The accused bore bruises on his neck; that and the physical evidence taken from beneath his fingernails would support the tale as well. What happened next is where the local law enforcement began to question the veracity of the incident as told by the boy.

Michael claimed to have blacked out. The last thing he remembered was the lightening of the weight on his body as Carson moved off of him. And a sound like howling. When he woke he was next to a body and covered with blood not his own. Carson had been pretty well torn limb from limb and disemboweled. The Raven Stone boy had ignored his brother-in-law's form and his own state and crawled to the next room. His sister's body had been laid out, a towel was pressed to her head wound, and growing nearer and louder was the sound of sirens. That's all he remembered before waking up strapped to a gurney.

A 911 call had been placed from the home phone by an unidentified caller who begged for an ambulance to be send out. "She" was bleeding. "A lot." And they needed to come quick. The recorded call was short as despite efforts by the dispatcher, the caller hung up without giving any other information. All agreed, however that caller was male and that he was whispering, and that it sounded like he was crying.

An ambulance was sent out, a nearby fire crew responded, and the call was logged.

It would be those first responders who called in local law enforcement to deal with the blood bath.

At this point Macawi Mathias questioned the sanity of the Absaroka County police. Michael and his sister were both taken to the closest hospital. Photographs taken showed the blood on the boy's clothing- - -clothing that was cut off by the emergency department in an effort to find the source of the blood on his body. At some point someone had the sense to take pictures of the boy's hands. It was this evidence on which Mathias was basing his assumptions of innocence. Presumably the young man could have killed his sister's husband in either (A) self-defense or (B) rage. But there was conflicting evidence. Pictures showed bloody fingernails, one bent backwards and broken…from the scuffle during which Michael was trying to remove the hand around his throat? His right palm was bloody. Blood that would later be type-matched to his sister's. He remembered crawling toward her. Had he picked it up there & then from the pool on the floor? There was disturbance in the pictures, but it could have been anyone…Michael, the paramedics, whoever had rendered first aid to the woman's head wound. Her blood wasn't anywhere else on the young man. Not on the knees of his jeans as if he'd been the one to kneel in that pool of blood, not on other hand or his elbows or anywhere. Just the one palm. The lab still had testing left to do, but the basic blood types on Michael's clothing matched both that of his sister and his brother in law. How did a young man end up with that much blood on the center of his shirt and on the waistband of his pants without getting any anywhere but his fingernails and one palm. What was Walt's operating theory? That the kid had somehow disabled his larger, stronger attacker and then pulled on gloves to commit the gory atrocities pictured, only to then dispose of the gloves, call 911, and then try to help his sister. There were gaps there… For one, the blood on the kid's hands wasn't smeared. So he'd've had to have had time for those drops to completely dry before gloving up to take care of business. And that wasn't the case because Mathias would never forget the feeling of that cool, sticky blood through the veil of the latex covering his fingertips when he'd responded to the medic's call for backup at the home.

The crime scene photos showed fairly clearly where Katherine Carson would have fallen- - the original pool of blood. And then the smears and new pooling to indicate where she'd been moved when someone attempted to make her more comfortable and staunch the flow of blood from the bashed-in bone at her hairline. There was no way a boy Michael's size could have picked up and moved his sister without getting more of her blood on his person than just what was found on his palm. Moving an inert body was a pain in the ass… Mathias had cause to know. The towel used hadn't come from the kitchen as best as he could tell. It didn't match anything she had in either bathroom or that Carson kept in the cabinet or toolbox under the carport. It was a plain, much-faded caramel color, washed thin with almost no nap left to it, and had probably been stiff from dirt and grime long before it had been used to soak up Katherine Raven Stone-Carson's blood.

To Mathias it was pretty clear that there had been someone else in that house that day.


	6. Chapter 6: Bloodstains

When Ruby had been called in to retrieve a sobbing Michael the two head peacekeepers of the area sat and regarded each other in silence for a while.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Longmire finally asked, flipping once more through the photographs on his desk.

Mathis considered the questions, then considered his answers. He thought of the woman he'd left sleeping in his bed that morning. Of the mother sitting in a hospital waiting room so that she was nearby should her daughter or doctors who didn't speak her language need her. He thought of the young man crying as he tried to explain a situation he didn't understand himself- - an impossible situation. He thought of Carson's family and the threats and rumbles he'd already heard and was taking precautions against.

He was thinking that the sheriff was a fucking moron. That his best hope for clearing Michael's name and catching whoever else had been there was slipping away from reality himself.

And he wondered if the other man was sitting there chastising himself for his stupidity.

Nah, probably not.

"I really doubt it, Sherriff Longmire."

"I care about the people, Mathias. I care about what this situation does to the peace in this county, to the relations between the folks that live over here and the ones that chose to stay on the res."

"Fine, sheriff. But you've got the wrong guy locked up. That kid's no more a cold-blooded killer than I am."

Longmire lifted his heavy brows at that. He had no doubt that Mathias was capable of taking a man apart for the right reason.

"He's locked up to keep him safe. Carson's crew is spreading trouble. Saying that Big Mike's boy in there came in and tried to kill both his sister and that bastard. Taking it farther. Trying to say that the mother spurred it all on. Purebloods trying to clean house. Lock up your women and your children, grab your pitchforks- - that kind of bullshit."

It was Mathias's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"I've borrowed a couple of city cops on a favor to keep watch over Mrs. Raven Stone while she's at the hospital. I'd suggest you keep a closer watch on your borders for trouble, but it looked like you were already there when I drove out this morning."

"My ears work just as well as yours, Sherriff."

"You gonna take that star permanently when they offer it to you?"

Mathias shook his head and glanced toward the glass case in the corner of the office. The county's finest held their treasures there. Antique handguns, a few faded photographs, some news clippings, a plaque, a trophy, a couple scattered rocks and fossils.

"I'd've liked it if you hadn't locked up our old chief."  
"You like working for criminals?"

Mathias admitted the truth in his head and amended the statement. "I hate that you had to lock up our old chief," he grinned, rising.

"You're not looking in the right direction, Sherriff. I think someone else was in that house."

"I heard you say it before and I think you're wrong." He flipped a photograph towards him.

"Labs are back. His blood on her clothes."

"Michael's? Of course there would be. If he'd gotten to her he could have bled onto her-"

Longmire shook his head.

"Carson's."

"Carson's blood on her clothes. Lots of it."

"No way," Mathias argued. He held out his hand and was given the lab results. "I think there's been a mistake."

Walt chewed the inside of his lip.

"Hey, Vic, Ruby, come in here for a sec!"

When the door opened both lawmen saw that Ruby had yet to lock the boy away in his cage again. He sat huddled over a paper cup in the chair next to her desk.

"Ferg's out there with him," Ruby began immediately. "The kid's not going anywhere anyway. He's a sweet one."

"Whatever," the sheriff dismissed her. "Here's the thing. Ruby, you're Katherine Raven Stone. You've got a head wound, passed out, over by the window sill. Vic, you hang out for a sec while we get Ruby knocked out."

Vic smiled and rolled her eyes as Walt took Ruby's hand and helped her to where he wanted her.

"Ruby, you're pregnant, too, okay?"

"Whatever you want, Sherriff."

"Okay, Vic, you come in, 'Oh, no! What happened?!' and decide to assist. What do you do?"

Vic shrugs. "Assuming there aren't two other dead bodies in the way? Women and children first. Only reverse that, because anybody with any shred of humanity is going to kids first."

"So you do what?"

"Come over to Katherine Raven Stone. Boy's too old, belly's too evident. He's on his own til I evaluate her."

"Okay."

Vic crouched beside Ruby.

"Basic rescue position or layman's as-seen-on-TV-flat-on-'er-back?"

"Flat on her back, please."

Vic helped Ruby shift so that she was basically laying exactly where she'd been sitting.

"Would it bother you to lie her down into a pool of her own blood?" Walt asked the room in general.

Mathias answered first. "Not me, but maybe a civilian? Someone softer? Someone who knew her?"

"I agree," Ruby said. "If she's still got a pulse when I got to her I'd want to get her out of her filth. Not let her wallow in it."

"Okay, so shift it a foot or so," he ordered.

Vic moved Ruby by first her shoulders, then her feet. "That where you want her?"

Mathias flipped through the crime scene photos.

"It accounts for the smear patterns nearest the sink," he agreed.

"But not for where the body was found," the Sheriff pointed out. "EMTs said she was over here," he pointed to another, smaller pool of blood. _Several _feet away.

Mathias frowned and put that one down, only to dig through for another shot. Vic joined them at the desk.

"I see it now," the younger officer agreed, his accent thickening. "I read that as…what?...nearly _two yards_?"

Vic clucked her tongue. "Nobody moves a body that far before checking them out. Even civilians."

"Ruby?" Longmire turned around to glance at his receptionist / dispatcher. She'd sat up against the wall to wait him out, hands folded saintly in her lap. "Call Henry in here. I want him to walk that kid through it again, without us in here, and pinpoint how far exactly he had to go to get to his sister."

"She had no blood on her hands," Mathias read from the hospital report.

"What about her shoes?" the older man asked.

Mathias was already shaking his head as he read through the documentation.

He looked up and shrugged. "It doesn't mention any."

"Bare feet, no bloodstains. No shoes, no bootprints, no footprints."

"I don't believe in ghosts, Sherriff."

"Neither do I."


	7. Chapter 7: Consults

Henry Standing Bear agreed to come to his friend's aid, as he had many times before. It was awkward, the distance between them. Both of Walter Longmire's daughters were close to the native Cheyenne. And this case promised to strain the relationship further.

"Is Amber pretty much staying out at Mathias's now?" Walt asked without preamble when the other man let himself into his office.

"Walter, I'd rather not talk about that right now, right here."

"It's a simple question. A yes or a no will suffice."

"Where do you want me to interview the Raven Stone boy?"

"He's a man," Longmire corrected. "You and me and even Officer Mathias keep calling him a boy, but he's seen enough to be afforded the respect of a man."

"The term applies also. But there is no shame in thinking of him as Big Mike's boy. He will always be his father's son. And as his father was a good friend to both of us, I do not think there is shame in referring to him as such."

"Have you seen the girl?"

"I have been to the hospital and spent some time with Mike's widow. She is distraught. They only allow family in during certain visiting hours. I sat long with her waiting for the next session."

"Mathias have cops on 'er?"

Henry raised a brow. "I doubt very much that the police officer present was there due to Macawi Mathias. His pull does not extend that far. He is, however responsible for the extra patrols around the main roads on and off the res. And for organizing care for the younger girl. It is said that she is being kept apart from this as much as possible."

"It's a hard call, when you're dealing with children, as to how much to tell them."

"Leave yourself and Katy separate from this."

"Would you tell your children? If you thought one of them was capable of murder, would you tell them?"

"Both of your girls are quite capable of taking a life if need be… not of murder. If it comes to light that the younger Michael Raven Stone took the life of Daniel Carson I am certain we will find it to have been in self-defense. But I doubt that very much."

"The mutilation?"

"Anger triggers us to do irrational things. Fear does, too."

Mathias left the county sheriff's office and let his way take him past the home of Michael Raven Stone's older girl. She'd been so happy every time he'd seen her. He didn't like the bastard waster Carson any more than anyone else did, but the girl had seen something in him worth loving and had cheerfully expected to build a life with him. To see that snuffed out as he had was tragic. If the girl lived she'd do so with the knowledge- - if not the memory- - that her husband had tried to end her life.

It was common knowledge that the man drank as much as he ate. The inventory of the fridge he'd seen had included several bottles of one brand of beer, half a case of another. He thought of himself and Amber. She drank his beer at his house, he drank hers at her apartment. But the woman in question had been pregnant.

The officer keyed his mic and called into his office. "See if you can find out what kind of beer Daniel Carson drank. Same thing for Amber Raven Stone. She wasn't a drunk, but I know she liked to drink now and then when she was younger. See if anybody will tell you what brand she preferred."

"Whatcha thinkin', Chief?" came back the nasally reply.

"Just assembling information. One more thing. Check out their friends & family. See if they've hosted a get-together lately."

His next call was placed on his personal cell.

"Hello. I missed you this morning," the cool voice said as way of greeting.

"You were sleeping deeply enough that I got away without waking you."

"I wouldn't have minded."

He took a deep breath and felt the world spin a bit more regularly, a bit more within his control. "I minded. You looked peaceful. Golden. It was a good way to start my day."

He took her breath away when that part of him opened up to her. She barely had time to blink back a tear and open her mouth to reply when he continued.

"Your dad was waiting for me on the porch. He knows you spent the night."

"He's a big boy. He'll live." Now Macawi waited for her to continue. "I'm surprised anyone could sleep through that fight."

"He actually didn't mention it," Mathias confessed. "He asked for my help with the Raven Stone-Carson case."

"That's good. That's what you hoped for, isn't it?"

"Yes. I wanted to be kept in the loop. To work it from our side."

She gnawed her lip. The _our side_ bit hurt and probably always would. He meant those who belonged on the reservation. She was part of his heart and soul- - she didn't doubt that- - but she wasn't one with his people.

"He found several gaps. Gaps that I had missed as well. I don't agree with where he's going with it, but he's open to the possibility, maybe even the probability, that Michael Raven Stone is an innocent in this."

"Are you working his case or yours now?"  
"Neither. I'm on a completely academic exercise now. Want to meet me at the house and go through it with me? I need fresh eyes and a sounding board."

"I'll be there in minutes. I'm just passing Jacob Whitehorse's diner."

"I appreciate it, Amber."

"Of course."

As he waited he placed one more call. Ruby answered at the old converted library.

"Miss Ruby, is the sheriff in?"

"He is, he's on another call."

"This is Macawi Mathias. Will you let him know that I'm going to go take another look at the Carson place. Something's bothering me."

"Shouldn't be a problem, but I'll let him know. You've your own tape and all to seal it back up when you're done?"  
"Yes, ma'am, and I'll call when I head out so you know I've finished."

"Fine then. And Chief? You'll turn evidence over to him so it can go thru our log?"

"Yes, ma'am. And ma'am? Will you have Henry Standing Bear call me when he arrives? There are a couple of questions I'd like to add to his list."

"He's here now, son. Let me get him for you."


	8. Chapter 8: People Change

"I've never assisted on anything like this before," Amber warned him as she slid out of her car and pushed the sunglasses up onto her head."

"They'll have cleaned up a good bit, but you should watch where you're stepping," he told her, opening the back of his truck again. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. "This will help with any of the smell. Breathe through your mouth. If you think you're going to be sick, step out and come as close to the road as you can. If you're going to pick something up take a picture of it first, then a picture of what caught your interest."

"What am I looking for?" she asked.

"Anything. Fresh eyes. A pregnant woman who loves her husband and loves her family is preparing dinner when all hell breaks loose. For all that I disliked Carson, he's never had a history of spousal abuse. No healing breaks or bruises or unexplained injuries on Katherine Raven Stone. So what made him snap like that on her? Affair? She's had it and is leaving?"

Amber shook her head. "Not if she's assembling a cradle. That's not leaving."

"See?" he asked, gently brushing a kiss across her forehead. "I needed woman's eyes."

She pulled on the cheap medical gloves he'd handed her and followed him into the dark house. The temps were low enough that the ME had just turned off the heat. Still, the smell of the blood hit her when he'd used the key he'd gotten from the Raven Stone family to open the door. The next thing she noticed was a vegetable rot.

"It looks like she was cooking, making their evening meal," Macawi explained, pointing to the counter. A cutting board, a bowl of scraps, a pot of water with some carrots and potatoes still waiting sat on the counter. Just inches away really was the point of impact where Katherine Carson's head had hit the edge of the counter, crushing her skull. In the floor below a thick, congealed pool showed signs where she'd moved or been moved or both. Mathias set the recorder he'd turned on down on the scrubbed-clean kitchen table. It was cheap, but it was sturdy and she'd made it pretty with a vase of wilted flowers and a set of decorative shakers.

"He loved her," she declared as she reached out toward the fanciful pieces. "He wasn't controlling or domineering. They were making a life together."

Mathias turned back toward her and lifted his brows in question.

"He let her have her things in his house." Again she pointed. "His bucks on the living room wall, his gun case beside the TV. Her end table with magazines. _Parenting _and _Country Living_. These weren't his." She took out her phone and snapped two photos. "They're in her name, addressed to her here."

As Mathias made his way deeper into the kitchen her eyes were caught by the stain on the ottoman of the chair she'd decided was Katherine's.

"Her brother will be able to confirm it, but this space was hers. He let her change things in the kitchen, but the living room was his. Still, she was welcome here. Part of it. Look-"

He turned again and saw her snap a few more pictures. One of the cream-colored 2nd-hand ottoman, one of the gun case, one of the over-loaded end table next to the dark faux-leather recliner.

"I bet he was painting her toenails. There's a stain here that matches this color." She retrieved a bottle of bright pink polish from what he'd deemed the man's side of the living room. "I'll bet this is the color on her nails now. And I'll bet the toenails will be a lot more sloppy than her fingernails."

He made it to the fridge and pulled out first a bottle of beer, flipping it and speaking into the recording device, then did the same for one of the cans.

"You think that Michael Raven Stone is lying about what he saw, what he heard?"

"No. But I think something else is going on here."

"Because her nail polish is on his table?"

She nodded. "And because she has a fairy and a palm tree on the kitchen table. And he has their wedding picture in a frame in his gun case. And because one or both of them was working on putting together that crib the day he attacked her and was killed."

"I want to find the checkbook," he told her.

She nodded, bit the inside of her cheek. He didn't mention that her father shared the same thoughtful habit.

"I want to see their bedroom, the nursery," she decided.

Henry Standing Bear took the chance of entering the cell of the young man. He'd notes he'd taken from both Walt and from Officer Mathias but he doubted he'd need them. Instead he waited until Ruby and the deputies had cleared out. Walt was in his office, the door propped open, but he was out of sight.

"I understand that you have been through a lot these past two days," he began. "But we want to better understand what happened. To bring justice for your sister. For your niece or nephew."

"You're friends with the sheriff," the younger man accused.

"I am. I trust him to be good and fair in this. He is making sure that your family stays safe. Has officers watching your mother and sister at the hospital. And is working with IR police. Even now their ranking officer is going back over the evidence with the intent on clearing your name."

"I didn't kill him."

"We believe you. We also believe that you are the only one who can answer some of the hard questions we have. I'd like to take you through it, one more time. Slowly…"

While the Cheyenne Nation whined and dined his prisoner in his office Walt paced the front room.

"Why don't you have a seat?" Ruby asked him.

He just shook his head.

"You know about Amber and Mathias?" he asked her.

Ruby just looked at him in her long-suffering way. "Walt…"

"What is wrong with my girls? That they both want men who have it out for me?"

His secretary had been in this town long enough to know that Macawi Mathias's lack of warm, fuzzy feelings for the county sheriff went back farther than his arrest of the police chief out there on the res. Her eyes flitted over to where Vic pretended not to listen while she filled out some report or another.

"He seems to be trying to be a good cop now. People change, Sheriff. That's the plain and the true of it. And sometimes it's for the better and sometimes it's for the worse. But that wild-child young man seems to be trying to be a good and upright man."

He cut his eyes at her sharply and went on pacing.

"Says something, doncha think, that for all the things he could have pursued in this world he came back here, came back to be a law man."

"Can it, Ruby," he hissed.

She shook her head at him. "They're over there now, looking over the house one more time. Could be he could use another set of eyes. Somebody else who believes that a young boy walked into a situation that was already beyond his control."

"Who's over there?" Vic asked. "Mathias and his people?"

"Officer Mathias called in. Amber was with him."

"He took Amber to the scene?" the deputy was genuinely surprised.

Walt didn't take to the news, either. "Amber? Amber's not an investigator. She's a college swim champ who learned to fix engines for the Coast Guard so she could work near water."

Now Ruby set aside her own chore and met his gaze full-on.

"She's a bit more than that and you and I know it," she corrected shortly.


	9. Chapter 9: Mismatched Pieces

The woman in question was even then following Mathias further into the house. When he flipped the lights on in the middle bedroom she followed him into what would have eventually been a child's paradise. Sunshine shone through bare windows, illuminating pale yellow walls. One of the adoring parents had painstakingly painted a field of grass to line the walls—the details of each individual blade was breathtaking. A dandelion's seeds blew through an imagined breeze to dance upward toward the ceiling. Amber spotted a lady bug peeking out near the floorboard to her left, a butterfly discussing the finer points of flight with a grasshopper under the windowsill.

"Oh-"

Mathias reached out to take the hand she extended to him. His touch, the light pressure, centered her.

"What went wrong here?" she asked softly. "How can this all just fall apart?"

He shook his head. There wasn't much in the room yet. The paint cans and a couple more boxes of ready-to-assemble furniture pieces were in the floor of a nearly empty closet along with a giant car seat still in the original packaging. A dresser had been purchased and waited to be filled with soft, warm things for the baby along one wall, its hardware still in the plastic bags sitting on top. A nightlight joined it, another scene of whimsy with fireflies against a blue backdrop. The cord—unplugged—ran garishly down to the floor.

Where Amber saw beauty he saw lies.

"Come on," he urged. There was nothing pertinent in here. Nothing that would help the young man Walt Longmire had caged in his office, anyway.

He led her further down the hall, stopping at the next door in the hallway.

"This is the master," he told her, reaching around to turn on the lights.

She frowned at him. "This is the master?" Her glance took in the doorway at the very end of the hall, her hand fluttering toward it.

He shrugged. "Looks like they were using this room. At least for now. The back bedroom space is completely torn apart. Like part studio, part renovation. Nobody knows for sure."

She frowned a little, but went into the bedroom to see what she could piece together of their world.

Here she found the normal clutter of two people living together. Their styles seemed to collide here. Comfortably, though. The furniture looked like second hand, rummage sale finds. Mismatched beautifully. Another lamp, this one with flowers weeping their petals to run in crimson and pink circles around the bottom border. He'd left a pair of muddy work boots in one corner. Her jewelry box was open, a few bracelets and things scattered around the top of the dresser. The bed was made and the cover turned down- - dark beige sheets with a navy comforter. An old, faded quilt was folded at the foot of the bed. A fan was plugged in on her nightstand beside a copy of _What to Expect When You're Expecting. _On the opposite side he'd stacked paperbacks until it looked like they would tip over.

"Handguns in both dressers, shotgun over the door in the laundry room, rifle tucked in the corner of the closet in here," Mathias's voice interrupted. "Checkbooks, registers, bank statements in his chest over here."

He pulled open the top of six drawers to reveal a haphazard filing system. A shoebox held what looked like opened and presumably paid bills, another was filled with stacked bank printouts, topped with a box of checks. The business end of the household shared berthing with his pocket knives, a watch, a toboggan, multiple key chains, and other detritus of a working man's pockets. The top of this dresser was bare but for a stack of clean, folded laundry and two more books from the best-sellers list.

Mathias watched Amber's lips twist. "He seems the more meticulous of the two. His things are put away," she gestured across the room. "Hers are spread out, left as she took them off or went through them. Inexpensive jewelry, nothing worth much. Hair clips and lotions and enough pens to start a stationary store."

"She kept journals," he told her. "They're stacked up in boxes and boxes and boxes. She's been writing a looong time."

"Hmmm."

"He's the one that did the books, though. Wasn't good at it." He shifted a couple of things, then flipped the register open. "He made mathematical errors time and again. Transposed numbers. They went over routinely, never for long, but it cost 'em. Would have been frustrating, trying to save for the little one, and him being careless with the money."

"So he wears the pants, he rules the cash," she mused. "Was she educated? I don't know the family. Could she have done it?"

He arched a brow. He was a pragmatic soul- - as far as he was concerned anyone with a second grade education and a calculator should be able to balance a checkbook. It wasn't rocket science.

"Yeah. She should have been able to do a decent job with it. Smart girl. Her writing is self-centered and long-winded, but it's grammatically correct in good penmanship. You can see on some of these where there's a different handwriting. That's hers."

Amber looked at the bank statements he flipped through, noting the loopy style of the columns of numbers. That in the registers was a tight scrawl. Sometimes there were entries in her writing. Sometimes corrections marked through as well.

"He let her help him. Asked her for help?"

Mathias shrugged when she looked at him.

"So she knew they had problems?"

He lifted his hands. "I don't know. Nobody knows. His family is surly and doesn't really answer questions. He's mixed it up a time or two in town- - brawls and the like. But no violence against women. And really nothing that normal people don't get into. She was the family good-girl until she announced that she was marrying him. Nobody's really close to the them. Nobody knows what they were like together except what the clerk at the grocery store saw when they shopped together. Which was absolutely nothing."

"She seems like the flighty one, him the worker bee. I guess they were just making it work…"

"I don't know," he said again.

"Okay. Let's keep moving."

She headed out, moving on to the powder room across the hall.

Mathias stood in the hallway, his thumbs tucked into his belt, while she opened drawers and doors and pawed through linens.

"Check it out, baby wasn't a mistake. They were trying for one," she announced, holding up a box.

He didn't want to know how women knew those things.

"She must have gotten her birth control filled, then they changed their minds," she murmured, flipping over the packages she found pushed to the back behind hairbrushes and more clips and scrunchies. "They're not expired. Must be keeping them for after the baby."

Her voice started sounding tired to Mathias as she kept up a running commentary on what she thought was interesting.

He'd never understood why women needed so much crap. The one they were investigating now had gallons of hair gunk, soaps, lotions, powders, and other crap. Amber he knew to be neater with her things, but she had probably twice the products that this girl kept. One bottle of a body wash/ shampoo combo. One toothbrush, one tube of toothpaste. Razor and razorblades. Deodorant. Some good cologne. Everything else was the woman's in here.

"These are all-natural cleaners," she murmured. "Expensive. Is that a personal choice for her or a religious thing or what?" Mathias realized she was honestly looking at him to be able to answer the question.

"I don't ask because I think all Indians are nuts…" she stated baldly from where she squatted in front of the sink, one hand steadying herself on the open cabinet door.

He laughed. "Good to know. You know I clean with PineSol and Bleach and Windex. What the hell are you talking about?"

Her grin lit up her face and he was grateful to see it. She was in pain—he could see that plainly, too. And she'd been affected by what she'd seen here.

"Henry uses what I'd term 'normal' cleaning products, too. As opposed to what I mentally catagorize as the volvo-club's all natural, green-but-still-manufactured cleansers. Most of which aren't all that much better, just different. Opposed, too, to what I consider hippie crap. Like using peppermint oil to repel mosquitos."

"Where do you typically put the people?"

She lifted a shoulder and turned back to her chore, taking another picture before pulling more crap out from under the counter. "That's what I'm asking, Macawi. Is something about the way she was raised making them spend twice as much for Tidy Bowl with no additivies, preservatives, and artificial flavorings? Or is this just one of them deciding that Tide & Febreeze aren't good enough?" She started putting the items under discussion back into their proper places. "I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill lil-old-grandma-knows-best home-remedy, either. Every culture has those."

Macawi shook his head and shifted his stance against the doorjam. He recrossed his arms the other way before answering. "I don't know, Amber. I've never heard of anybody who really gave a damn about what they're washing with so long as their shit gets clean. I don't think her mother raised her on this crap. These products are fairly new to the market. But I don't think they made home-brew shower gel, either…"


	10. Chapter 10: Lost Conciousness

"Autumn?"

The deep voice called out from the front of the house as Mathias extended his hands to help her up.

His eyes rolled of their own accord. "That's _my_ nickname."

Amber smiled at him. "It's my name. It's sweet that he's using it."

The thick, dark brow arched at her. A shrug was her response.

"I'm okay with it. I use it sometimes. Have for years. I lose who I am to whom sometimes."

Mathias pressed the world's quickest kiss against her brow. Of course it wasn't quick enough. Walt Longmire's long stride ate up the ground quickly and he rounded the corner to see them - - her hands still clasped in his, his precious daughter leaning into the strength of the other man, a tender expression on a face he was most used to facing in opposition.

"Whole lot of investigating going on here," he smirked. His daughter was a bright cookie. She was no cop.

Mathias sighed again and prayed for patience…or strength. He was never sure whether to ask the spirits to help him see the sheriff in a better light or if he should be seeking to get rid of his erstwhile tormentor.

"We're working our way back, Dad," Amber replied. "Heading into the last room now."

Mathias nodded. "It will be our last for today. We can come back and look deeper into the storage spaces and outside," he told the woman whose hands he still held. She was tired. His duty and request that she join him had taken its toll and he was eager now to get her out of the house. The ghosts of it would add to her nightmares as it was. And something about her wistfulness as she'd examined the poor woman's life tugged at his conscience.

Something wasn't jiving with the impressions he'd gotten of the couple and what Amber absorbed from the living spaces.

Her first impression of the back room…what most would be using as the master bedroom…was pretty bleak. She'd entered the room first, without flipping the light switch. The sun's beams warmed the opposite side of the house, leaving this last room in shadows. With the mounds and heaps of God-only-knew-what and the floor covered with drop cloths the dim light from the bank of windows only depressed her further.

When Macawi Mathias reached around her to shed light on the darkness she became entranced with magic.

_Here._ It was _here_ that one of them worked. Struggled. Toiled & designed. _Created._

One of them was compelled to create. This was evinced in the scattered projects- - several in various stages of production. A workbench along the short wall to her left held a beautifully carven piece of tree trunk, another huge limb denuded of its bark and sanded smooth and clean leaned against that corner. Scattered drawings littered a makeshift workstation balanced on two sawhorses. More were taped or tacked to the walls. Most of the space, however, including two mismatched bookshelves, seemed devoted to the beautiful wrought iron and stained glass creations.

"Holy God," she whispered. Her fingertips reached out to dance over piece laid out over a hand-drawn pattern on a heavy army-surplus style desk. She picked up a few pieces from a rusty old pail filled with coordinating colors. Yellow. Like sunshine and warmth and love. The piece under construction featured every shade of yellow, from palest eggshell in an almost opaque form to deep, deep honey tones as clear as the Amber she was named for.

"Who did this? Whose was this?"

Mathias didn't answer at first. He was trying to see it from her eyes.

"Him, we think," her father replied instead.

"It's his handwriting on the notations," the man nearer her added. "Although it looks like some of the other projects she was involved in. The woodworking stuff mainly. Her handwriting is on some of the notations for the designs. Looks like the same hand drew everything, though."

Amber turned to face him, her eyes dancing.

"He had such talent. He must have made the things in the other rooms, too!"

Neither man was impressed. An artistic temperament was fine. Choking the life out of your pregnant wife wasn't.

They watched her methodically scope out the different portions of the room. She frowned, crouching beside where pipework led from the attached bath to a bucket just beneath a floor-to-ceiling window. She tried the rusted hinges. Miraculously, it opened easily and she found herself looking out upon a small kitchen garden. A few anemic vegetables, a couple berries, and a plethora of herbs winked in the shade.

She tsked to herself as she drew the window closed. "These should have the morning sun. No wonder her tomatoes didn't do well over the summer. And that one poor, lone pumpkin…" Amber's voice was tender as she mourned a badly plotted summer garden that had not transitioned well into fall.

Walt huffed, then let it change to an amused laugh. He'd been the one to call it; she was no investigator. At least Mathias had the sense to outfit her in gloves before letting her touch everything. And, honestly, there wasn't much need anyway. No one else had been out here. None of what she touched had anything to do with the dead or the broken.

"I love this pattern," she told Mathias as she looked up at him from where she was. She twisted, resting on her haunches now, as she began to open desk drawers and then the bottom file drawer. She found no paperwork—only tools of a trade she only knew about in the most abstract of ways.

"It's funny to think of him as being the one to make these," she mused. "The lamp in her bedroom is rose petals. The pretty florals. The scene in the kitchen. This one here, with the stars and moonbeams and rays of the sun. This one is so elaborate. The one in the nursery, too." She paused.

"They are extremely well done," her lover admitted. He didn't think it was so fantastic a skill if the man so obviously struggled with finances.

"As far as hobbies go, this one is sexy as hell," she corrected.

"And expensive, too," he argued. "Money they could have used stocking the pantry and buying baby clothes."

She stuck out her tongue at him and went on to the cabinet behind her.

Longmire rested a hip on the heavy wooden workbench. "Any evidence that he ever took any of his work to sell? I didn't hear of any tradeshows or local patrons or anything in our investigation."

Mathias shook his head. "This didn't feature prominently in our rounds of questioning, either. They're lamps and trivets. Dustcatchers. We're looking for a killer, not looking into what the man did in his spare time. Nobody cares about how or why he makes stained glass pieces."

"Might ought to," Amber called from where she was nearly bellied up to the pipes that had been run haphazardly from the bathroom that was in the process of being retiled in a roughly sketched mosaic of what might have been the Garden of Eden.

Both men turned to look at her as she rose. She wiped a smear of rust on the thigh of her jeans. In the other hand she held a thin, dull piece of metal.

"Check the hospital and the morgue. Look for traces of lead poisoning."


	11. Chapter 11: Tainted Blood

"Lead?"

Mathias would never know if it was he or Longmire who spoke or moved first.

Amber's brows shot up. "It's a theory. There are, within six feet of us, two possible sources. Not to mention the fact that they've obviously torn these rooms down to the barest essentials. No telling what was in these walls from the last few decades of abuse. Not to mention this thing was probably built by the lowest bidder in a time we didn't know about the harmful side-effects of the most economical & durable of building materials." She pointed at the bucket. "I'm no scientist, but it looks like he was reusing his wash water, dumping it out on the garden. I'm all about using grey water returns for things like that, but not if it's going to make me glow in the dark or radiate like a cell tower."

Walt pursed his lips and frowned at the other lawman.

"I'm sure if they'd found anything out of the ordinary…"

"Doesn't lead show up in a basic panel? Wouldn't it? Plus the coroner would have seen outward signs of it…"

Amber shook her head. "Outward warning signs of lead poisoning include an increase in hostility, lack of anger management, confusion, and irrationality."

Mathias jerked her harder than he meant to, snatching the piece from her fingertips and shoving her out the door. "Get out of here if you think it's contaminated."

"Christ Jesus," Walt complained as he followed them down the hall. "Don't touch anything else. Did you drink anything here?"

Amber rolled her eyes and shook her head. She doubted she'd been exposed to anything long enough to cause any long-term side-effects. "Ya'll are quick to whack out about stuff for experienced law enforcement officers."

Both men had already bent their heads to speak into their respective radios. She was temporarily forgotten.

"Vic, take the Raven Stone boy to the clinic. Now. Don't get too close to him. They need to check him over for signs of lead poisoning."

Amber rolled her eyes again as she stopped on the front porch. "Dad! It's not like radiation or a virus. She's not going to catch it from him!"

"Not now, Autumn," he muttered before switching gears. "I need to be patched through to Cheyenne crime lab…"

When she tuned into Macawi she found him just as concerned, but to her way of thinking he was sexier with it. "She and the fetus both need to be checked if possible. Probably long-term exposure. Hopefully low levels. She wasn't hands-on with the building projects and they were careful about the cleaning solutions she used, so hopefully that exposure was minimal. Even more so after she found out she was carrying. We'll need to test the ground water, that from all the sinks, as well as the materials in the back workroom."

"And the garden," she added in a singsong voice.

"And the garden—what vegetable remain on the vine as well as the layers of soil."

She scuffed her toes in the dirt and wondered about the small family's garden. So ill-planned. So ill-conceived. It was sooo damn hard to grown things here, why hadn't they researched what grew best where? She herself grew in container gardens so that she could control the nutrients in the soil to the liking of each crop. Her herbs sang to her from her kitchen sill, mint and thyme and rosemary each in big terra cotta pots in front of her French doors.

She played with the gloves she'd wadded up into a ball and waited for one of them to notice her so that she could admonish them to play nicely. She was worn out. And tireder, probably, from trying so hard to fake it for them. The weakness was growing old. She turned, resting her chin atop her crossed arms, propping herself up against the top of her car. It was dwarfed, sandwiched between Macawi's muscled-up IR jeep & her dad's official use bronco.

She let the sun soak into her back, praying the warmth would loosen the muscles and warm the scar tissue…wishing it would melt like wax so that she could remold herself into the woman she'd once been. She remembered decades of wearing flimsy dresses and tank tops and bathing suits meant to draw the eye to as much flesh as possible. Now she just wished she could dress without the uncomfortable tugs in the fiber of her being, without clothes hanging on the unsightly ripples and bulges.

She got the attention of both men when she let out a small squeak.

Walt reached out to steady her as she tripped backward, pointing.

"There's somebody in there!" she gasped.

Like surreal pseudo-twins both men reached for their sidearms with the same fluid motion and assurance. Amber stored the mental image for a time when she could appreciate it without fear. In the meantime she crouched behind her front tire.

"Are you carrying?" Longmire asked his youngest.

She shook her head. "I don't have anything with me. I haven't gotten a new permit to carry since I came back."

Macawi hissed at her. They'd discussed this several weeks ago. Nearly several months ago, if she was honest. She'd cleaned out her wallet and found the expired permit from her time in Lincoln, Oregon. He'd told her to put a damn handgun under her seat and to go get the thing.

Her father was reaching down, taking his holdout piece from the ankle holster and putting it in her hands.

"Get the rifle from my truck and hunker down in your dad's backseat," Mathias ordered. You damn well look twice before you shoot, but it somebody comes out of that shed who isn't your dad or I, you put 'em down and then you get on the phone, then you get out of here. Do you understand me?" He took her chin, lifting her face. "Don't come in, don't check to see if you got 'im, you put it in fucking drive and you call for help."

She nodded, wishing she'd given in and taken a pain pill when they'd gotten outside. But then they'd've insisted on babying her, wouldn't let her drive, and would have worried.

She was already sliding over to Mathias's truck, letting her hand slide over his.

As she eased the door open and unlatched the rifle she heard both men radio in to their respective departments a report of possible contact.

As she rested the barrel on the doorframe, trying to find a reasonably comfortable position on the bench seat where her father would more usually put criminals than family members, she wondered again that they seemed to instinctively work well together. She wondered how much of it was what Macawi had absorbed as a youth or if there was some universal cop hierarchy that all law enforcement was taught or what.


End file.
